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Monday, April 13, 2015

Global Cities

I have always wanted to go to Melbourne. And now I am here. Whenever you look at 'World's best cities' lists, they normally include this place. It has been ranked the most livable city by the Economist Intelligence Unit since 2011 and among the top three since 2002. So I am looking forward to seeing why. In my Utopia, there would be multiple global cities of all different sorts of flavours. The best ones would attract more people, and we could vote using our feet rather than ballot boxes. We also wouldn't have to worry about random borders drawn up over the last 100 years which arbitrarily decided this silly idea of nationality.

I quickly met up with a former colleague for coffee as I arrived, and his happy demeanour probably backs up those surveys. He also gave some hope with regards to the 'battle period' I was talking about yesterday with respect to raising families. Whether that is because Melbourne is so awesome his family network never left, or because his three little people are now out of the toddler years and pre-teen years is unclear. He is of Italian descent, so La Familia left Italy two generations ago and have stuck around here. The two grandfathers came out, then a few years later sent for the ladies to join them.

One small observation from the few cities I have arrived at recently is what a difference an easy commute from the airport to the city makes. Auckland and Melbourne have stuck out for me as having had a particularly warm greeting. In Auckland they have a very friendly, reasonably priced transfer service which will take you to the door of where you are going. Melbourne has a wifi enabled skybus, also cheap, which takes you direct to the middle of the city. This probably isn't that unusual, but I can see how a cities 'competing' against each other for visitors (or even citizens) could benefit from these sorts of little details.

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Swart Donkey

Swart means Black (my surname) in Afrikaans. I am proud of my African roots but am a global citizen who believes that we should look to define ourselves collectively by the great things we can achieve. I believe in freedom of people and ideas and that we are moving towards a more friendly, happy world. Like a Donkey, I can be noisy, stubborn and ignorant - but like a Donkey I am willing to put effort in to change. The focus of this blog is happiness and learning - so basically, it is a blog on everything.